The Good News I Can’t Quite Believe

by Christie Purifoy | Dec 7, 2017 | Advent, allergies, children, Christmas, Desire, Faith, Family, Food, healing, motherhood, Pregnancy, Uncategorized, Waiting

During Advent twelve years ago, I was newly pregnant and very afraid.

I should have remembered the angel’s proclamation to Mary, “Do not be afraid.” Instead, because I had waited so long and with so much agony for this second child to be conceived, the news of a growing baby felt too good to be true. I became convinced that my child would be born with serious health problems.

My prayers had been answered, but I dimly sensed there must be some price to pay.

I had suffered just enough to stop believing in good news and gifts freely offered.

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The good news of this season is God’s nearness. A son has been born to us, and his name is God-with-us.

The good news is that the God who came near has promised to return. Advent is that season when we pinch ourselves awake, we rub the sleep from our eyes, and we remember to watch and wait.

“A light shines in the darkness,” and despite everything–everything— we’ve seen, we believe the “darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

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My son Thaddeus was born at bright noon on my very own birthday. He was healthy and strong, and I held in my arms the answer God had been whispering to me for months: This son is a good gift. No strings attached.

That was the good news, and it was absolutely true. Yet my grip on it slipped as Thaddeus grew.

He had his first serious allergic reaction at six months old. It was Christmas Eve.

We used the epi-pen and drove him to the hospital for the first time when he was two.

We did the same when he was three.

When he was four, I took him out for a treat and forgot to bring his epi-pen. A stranger with an epi-pen in her purse saved my son’s life.

I remember once standing with an exhausted doctor in a hospital corridor. We were both watching Thaddeus, lying so swollen and so still in that enormous hospital bed, and I asked, “Will he grow out of it?”

The doctor sighed, his eyes never leaving my little boy. I waited.

“Normally, I would say yes. But I’ve never seen a reaction like his. How could a little processed-cheese dust cause this?”

//

Through a decade of constant vigilance and fear that was still, too often, not good enough, I prayed for my son.

Heal him. Please.

But every single time I prayed, the same few words would drop—like a stone—in my heart:

He is already healed.

I never knew what to do with that stone. Some days I believed the good news: already healed. But the good news couldn’t fully erase the fear that we would make another mistake, miss something, forget something.

And the good news seemed to offer little to a boy who ate his lunch alone at the “peanut-free table” and cried after every class party: I just want to eat what all the other kids eat.

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I can’t remember when we first decided to let him try dairy. Two years ago? A year? I know he asked for a long, long while before we said yes. I can’t even remember what we fed him. Was it a muffin baked with a little bit of butter? Or was it a waffle made with a small amount of buttermilk?

I’ve forgotten how it began, but I remember the culmination: cheesy homemade pizza on a Friday night. We let him try one bite. We kept his epi-pen on the counter. We made him wait twenty minutes before another bite, and we peppered him with questions:

How do you feel? Is there any scratchiness in your throat? What about now? Does your mouth itch? What about now?

He ate one whole piece of pizza that night, but we still took it slow. The light of that good news announced for years to every one of my prayers was dawning, but Jonathan and I covered our eyes.

We were afraid, I think, to look directly at the thing we had always desired.

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This year, our son has eaten cookies and cakes baked with butter. He has eaten cookies and cakes baked with milk. Twice, he ate a cupcake frosted with butter frosting. Once, he sprinkled parmesan cheese on his soup, and I didn’t stop him.

On Thanksgiving Day, we realized too late we’d forgotten to buy almond milk. We made the mashed potatoes, Thaddeus’s favorite food, with real milk, real cream, and real butter.

That night, having had no reaction to the potatoes, Thaddeus ate his first slice of apple pie with real whipped cream.

“I like it,” he said, in a quiet voice.

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A week or so ago, I realized we were out of the almond milk Thaddeus has always used on his Cheerios and his oatmeal. Jonathan would be heading to the grocery store that day, but as I wrote up a list for him, I couldn’t decide whether to add almond milk.

The only thing we had not yet tried giving Thaddeus was pure milk. I knew in my mind he could have it. He ate whipped cream! I knew he had outgrown his milk allergy, but over all these years, I have grown accustomed to doubt and fear.

The last time Thaddeus took a sip of milk, he was three, and it was a glass meant for his sister, and the whole nightmare ended with a bloody mark on his pants from the epi-pen and a trip to the hospital.

My pen hesitated until, finally, I wrote: almond milk (do we need to buy more?).

//

Maybe Advent is the long, slow leaning in toward the good news we do believe. Maybe Advent is a gradual waking up.

The good news we have waited for has been announced in our lives. I have seen the evidence with my own eyes. My much-loved boy is no longer allergic to milk, and this year, for the first time, he and I will share a birthday cake made with real milk and real butter.

But when I think about pouring him a glass of milk, my hand starts shaking with old memories and old fears, and I can’t do it.

I haven’t yet done it.

When Jonathan brought the groceries home, I saw the familiar box of almond milk amidst the bananas and the avocados.

“You bought more almond milk,” I said to him.

It was a statement.

It was a question.

Jonathan looked at me. He didn’t say anything until he finally looked away.

“It feels good just to have it in the house,” I said, and he nodded.

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We are waiting for Christmas. We are waiting for Christ’s return.

But maybe we’re also waiting on ourselves. Gently and with patience.

Because the good news is a bright light, and our eyes are weak. Our hearts still a little fearful. And maybe we need to hear, just one more time, what Mary heard not so long ago:

The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid.